1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for displaying drawings in a computer-aided design (CAD) system.
In recent years, along with the spread of CAD systems, the number of drawings managed by CAD systems has risen to a considerable level, for example, several hundred to several thousand or more. For this reason, it has become difficult for designers to remember which drawing identifications match which drawing contents. This has led to various inconveniences. Resolution of this problem is demanded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional CAD systems are provided with a drawing loading function. With such a drawing loading function, it is possible to read out a desired drawing from a hard disk or other large volume storage device and display it on a display apparatus just by designation of the drawing identification. When forgetting the drawing identification of the desired drawing, it is possible to display a list of drawings in the menu region of the screen display, designate and display successively one drawing at a time, and view the displayed drawings so as to confirm which is the desired drawing.
In the conventional drawing loading function, however, all the information of the drawings was displayed on the screen display. Therefore, it took a long time until a drawing was displayed on the screen display. In particular, it took a long time to display more complicated drawings (ones with more graphic elements). There was the problem that it was not possible to obtain a match of the drawing content with the drawing identification in a short time and this led to a reduction in work efficiency.